The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

A coffee plantation. Starbucks is working with coffee farmers to prepare for climate change by conserving water resources, soil resources and biological diversity. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Climate change has arrived. 2012 is in the books as one of the warmest years on record, and extreme costly weather events are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Against this backdrop, the debate is slowly migrating from partisan wrangling over the existence of climate change to more productive efforts to think creatively about how to prepare for it.

My interest here is not to make the case for climate change - many far more knowledgeable than I have already done so - but to show how some f0rward-thinking companies are taking tangible, constructive steps to anticipate it and mitigate its impact. This new but growing discipline is known as "Climate Resilience."

The 40-page report is too full of valuable information to quickly summarize, but I want to quote generously from it here to give readers - particularly within especially vulnerable business sectors - a flavor of it. Such sectors include (for reasons related to their direct weather exposure) Food and Agriculture, Utilities, and Manufacturers with substantial supply chains. The report begins:

"The climate is changing and impacts on businesses and communities are already being felt. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and more severe weather events are being observed. Nine out of ten companies have suffered weather-related impacts in the past three years, and most have seen an intensification of such impacts. Meanwhile, communities on which businesses depend for their supplies, workforce, sales, and more are being affected. A change in climate will lead to a changing business environment and changing community relationships...

"This guide introduces the Business ADAPT (analyze, develop, assess, prioritize and tackle) tool. The tool follows a step-by-step climate resilience framework inspired by existing good practice risk management models. Many businesses will benefit from using the Business ADAPT tool, including businesses with these characteristics:

- Have long-lived fixed assets

- Use utility and infrastructure networks

- Secure natural resources

- Create extensive supply/distribution networks

-Require finance and investment...

"Corporate climate resilience is a relatively new field, yet good examples of multinational and medium-sized companies taking action to minimize the implications of a changing climate do exist. Readers will find many illustrative examples of climate resilience in action in this report."

Among the cases described are Starbucks, . and Swiss Re - all in very different industries, but all having climate change exposure, and all taking actions to begin to manage their risks. Brief examples:

Starbucks works with Conservation International to "promote environmental leadership" among its coffee growers in countries including Costa Rica and Rwanda. Such leadership can include conservation of water, soil and biological diversity. Simple actions such as building coffee shade canopy covers can help farmers prepare for a future with possibly hotter temperatures and scarcer water.

Levi Strauss & Co., dependent on cotton for its apparel products, is part of a Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), which seeks to improve the way the cotton is grown globally. BCI, for instance, helps cotton farmers with techniques that enable them them to use less pesticides and water, such as increasing the development of border crops and irrigation systems.

Swiss Re, a global provider of reinsurance and insurance, works innovatively with "cash-poor farmers" in Ethiopia. The farmers have an option "to work for their insurance premiums by engaging in community-identified projects to reduce risk and build climate resilience, such as improved irrigation or soil management."

When I was in the corporate world with MassMutual Financial Group, for years I was a member of a team that went by a variety of names (Disaster Recovery, Business Recovery, etc.), but whose purpose was always the same: to mitigate risk by helping the organization prepare for the unexpected - backing up systems, making arrangements for alternate work sites and so forth... in case these were ever needed. While this preparatory work sometimes seemed repetitive and dull (as it's usually not immediately needed), over time I've come to appreciate just how critically important the function is.

As the near-catastrophic financial events of 2008 demonstrated, it's hard to imagine a more important leadership task - whatever your business - than managing risk.

Climate change is, among many other things, a vast global business risk.